When Queen Wilhelmina inherited the Dutch throne from her father King Willem III of the Netherlands in 1890, she was only ten years old. She was not only the country’s first female monarch, but her accession to the throne also ushered in over a century of queens in the Netherlands. Wilhelmina was officially inaugurated in 1898 when she turned 18 and served as queen for half a century, during the crucial years of the two World Wars and the Depression. The present monarch, King Willem-Alexander, is Wilhelmina’s great-grandson and, when he was inaugurated in 2013, he became the first king of the Netherlands since Willem III.
Producer: Marijke van der Meer
Broadcast: September 1998